Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Apr 9th, 2009 by billb
George Herbert said that sometime in the 1600’s, still true today. Stand Up Paddle Surfing has plenty of detractors, none of whom have the slightest idea of what SUP really is.
For example, yesterday started off inauspiciously. The North Shore of Maui was due for a decent swell, so I rousted myself early. Ho’okipa was closed out and nasty looking when I passed it at about 6:00AM. A handful of hardy shortboarders were trying to punch out through the channel, but they weren’t getting very far. I rolled into Kanaha about 6:30, polished off my Everything Bagel and coffee from Paia’s wonderful coffee shop–Anthony’s–and got into the water. I have to admit I wasn’t enthusiastic. The sky was lead gray, the water felt cold and clammy, the waves looked messy. There was only three stand up surfers and one longboarder in the closeout waves. I paddled through the channel and decided to try the lefts into the channel because it looked like the best opportunity for a clean shoulder.
The problem with taking lefts into the channel is that the spot you need to line up on is the most likely place to get caught inside. Sure enough, just as I missed a punky head-high wave I turned back out and saw a double overhead face already starting to crumble. I dove into the face, went for a little leash ride. Paddled back out, caught a decent wave that petered out quickly when it hit the rip in the channel, got pounded again and decided to try the rights at the far west end. As I paddled out around the break a really big wave reared up far outsode. I paddled like mad for the horizon and barely squeaked over the lip. The four other surfers weren’t so lucky, and one SUP guy and the longboarder called it a day and headed for the beach.
I caught a few waves, but they closed out almost immediately and turned into foam rides. I finally decided I wanted sun, easy paddling and knee-high surf. Sop I loaded up and went to the west side. I put in at Launiopoko, paddled west and ran into Randy [...]
